From Where I Enter

Latin inscription at ceiling arch in nave of chapel
"That In All Things God May Be Glorified"

As I enter our sacred chapel space, the above iconic embossed mantra on the highest summit of the Gothic ceiling always catches my attention.  It invites me to stop, pause, and pay attention.  I am reminded "You are entering the Sacred Place of God's Dwelling- the centerpoint of your life. You are here to be refreshed and renewed and to be embraced in my love."

I have stopped what I am doing to enter into a prayerful stance, to enter into God's Holy Presence, and to sing God's song with my Sisters.  This time is the Work of God, our life with and in God.  It is not a separation from the world I have just left, but a communion in God's Presence for the sake of the world.

The mantra "That in all things God may be glorified" reminds me that earth and heaven are one.  I am here in this Sacred Space for a reason.  I am here to be shaped by God and to be loved by God so that I can shape and love wherever I go- at work, at table, at prayer. It is this chapel time that is the essence of it all, uniting time and prayer into God's universal call to love.  Whether I am in chapel praying alone or praying with my Sisters in community, I must know that the fruit of this time goes with me wherever I go.  I hear the call to carry within my heart the mantra "That in all things God may be glorified" every breathing moment of my life. So everytime I enter our Sacred Space and my eyes greet the words of St. Benedict's mantra  

"That In All Things God May Be Glorified"

I pray the following poem

As I open the door to prayer

my heart breathes a sigh of relief

as I step into Holy Space.

The stillness of God's beauty

permeates every fiber of my being

as I place myself in God's Holy Embrace.

As my eyes gaze heavenward

I am grateful for my call

to sing my heart out

"That in all things God may be glorified."

~Sister Priscilla Cohen, OSB

    

"How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place..." Psalm83

The following passage from the Old Testament reading at Eucharist today really struck me:
"And I saw that the temple was filled with the glory of the Lord...The voice said to me: Son of man, this is where my throne shall be, this is where I will set the soles of my feet.." (Ezekiel 43:4,7)
Day after day, year after year, for 23 years, I remain continually awed at the majestic beauty of our Monastery Chapel.  Its soaring Gothic architecture, feminine color scheme, radiant jeweled stained-glass windows, Benedictine symbols, and inherent silence invite all those who enter to an awareness of the peace and presence of God.  In the silent pauses of our monastic prayer together, I often find myself gazing at the stained-glass windows, always becoming aware of something I've never noticed before.  I frequently observe my Sisters gazing also at the windows.  I'm sure we all have our favorite windows and symbols, God's revelation to us from where we "set the soles of our feet" in our assigned choir stalls.

Our chapel is in the center of our monastery residence and reminds us that Christ is the center of our lives. Whenever I stand outside in front of it and gaze to its highest point of 75 feet,  my heart leaps in gratitude for our Sisters who gifted this beauty for us today.  Sister Mary Ruth Coffman, our archivist, describes the Sisters who launched the building of the chapel as risk takers: "When they made the decision to go forward with the building, they could not know that the nation's greatest financial crisis was imminent.  If they had known the difficulties ahead of them, perhaps even those risk-takers might have hesitated, and the chapel would have been years away.  Instead, the building was constructed during the first years of the Great Depression, affording much-needed work for artisans and workers in Cullman."
(Sister Mary Ruth Coffman, OSB, On Good Ground, Benedictine Women of Alabama)
The Sisters raised $51,000 and borrowed $42,000, "a considerable sum to be repaid in depression years." (Coffman)  Imagine what this beautiful dwelling place would cost today!  It continues to hold a centrality in our hearts and we cannot fathom changing its location.  Other buildings may be renovated, relocated, or demolished, but the one thing we agree on is the preservation of the chapel in its present location to remind us of  the centrality of God's presence in our lives.  It constantly feeds us, inspires us, renews us, and mesmerizes us.  "Since 1931, the noble lines of Sacred Heart Chapel have become the most recognizable symbol of the Community-a call to prayer, a promise of peace, an assurance of loving concern, a witness of faith, both to the Sisters and to all the people whose lives they touch.  In truth the chapel has become the Community's "stone of witness":(Coffman)
"See, I am laying a stone of witness in Zion,
a stone that has been tested,
a precious cornerstone as a sure foundation;
whoever puts faith in it shall not be shaken." -Isaiah 28: 16

How grateful I am to have responded to God's call to "set the soles of my feet" in this holy dwelling place.
There is so much to share about our beautiful sacred space, so for the next few weeks my blog will continue on the holiness of this awesome foundation.

My home is by your altars,

Lord of hosts, my king and my God!

Happy are those who dwell in your house!

They never cease to praise you. Ps. 83

Letter Writing~A Lost Art

In our high-tech culture of electronic communication, I have become more aware of the fact that I rarely receive good old-fashioned, heart-warming, snail mail letters. That is, I never receive a letter that I can actually sit down, take a load off, and leisurely savor the wisdom and journey of a loved one.  I don't mean this as a lament on my part, but rather a longing for communication meant to be genuinely shared and that will immediately ignite my spirits to respond with like-minded "soul mate" connection.  There tends to even be less junk mail which I usually throw away (always thinking what a waste of our beautiful trees!).  Instead, most communication is via e-mail, more junk mail than non-junk correspondence.  The communication I must respond to is very brief, not even in complete sentences- sometimes just an impersonal "OK" seems to suffice. But with the advent of social networking, I am aware that there is even less e-mail, less talking on the phone, more and more texting everywhere I go.  I am really not aware of people writing letters anymore.  Greeting cards are still a part of my life, but even these are often sent electronically.

Saint Basil the Great in a letter to Olympius resonates with my lament:
You used to write us little enough, but now you do not write even that little; and if your brevity keeps increasing with time, it seems likely to become complete speechlessness.  Therefore return to your old custom, for I shall never again find fault with you for practicing Laconic brevity on me by letter.  Nay, even your little letters, seeing that they are tokens of magnanimity, I shall value highly.  Only write to me.

Sister Macrina Wiederkehr OSB, in her book, A Tree Full of Angels, describes the reception of letters as Finding God in the Mailbox.  She believes "letters are the stories of our souls. Unlike a telephone call, a letter can be picked up again and again.  It can be deeply pondered.  It can be eaten.  Always serve letters with a cup of tea and a footstool.  Celebrate "the reading" slowly.  It is irreverent to read a letter fast."  She goes on to say that she treasures her letters "like morning sunrises. I see the rays between the lines.  I hear the dreams and yearnings, the gratitude and delight...A letter bears its own copyright.  Standing before my mailbox holding an original very limited edition in my hands is like standing before a feast."

I really can't remember the last three or four page letter I wrote to anyone.  I have written short letters to God in my journal and have written special greeting cards with maybe three or four sentences of generic "best wishes" jargon.  I do believe writing should be an artist's  soul connection with another- a sharing of one's sacred journey to another Holy Listener.  It calls for the discipline to carve out holy, sabbath time- a time that will allow me to reflect on the sacredness of my daily journey, to share it with a special listener, to send the written, "limited edition" and to await the blessed surprise of a return letter in my mailbox.

The Sabbath time of letter writing is a challenge for me.  It is a gift to me and to the one with whom I share.
I am reminded of one of my favorite Scripture passages- "The gift you have received, give as a gift." (Matthew 10:8)  In old-fashioned, snail-mail letter-writing, I gift my self to another with a "token of magnanimity."  If I receive a response I am equally blessed by God's presence in that person's life.  If I do not receive a response, I am still blessed.

So I start this holy art of letter writing this week.  The first loved one that I write to will be my dear mother.  The second one will be my former spiritual director-a wonderful Holy Listener.  And if anyone else wants to send me a genuine, old-fashioned snail mail, I promise to send you one also.

"The connection to the Friend

is secret and very fragile.

The image of the Friendship

is in how you love,

the grace and the delicacy,

the subtle talking together

in full prostration, outside of time,

When you are there,

remember the fierce courtesy

of the one with you."

A Year with Rumi ~Coleman Barks

Earth...Metaphor for Life's Journey

The Earth is "full of harsh realities, but sometimes it's just paradise."

 from the movie narrative, EARTH

I dearly love to travel and to watch movies.  Although I have had the opportunity to visit the Northwest, the Gulf Coast, the Midwest, British Victoria, the Carribean and Italy (my favorite pilgrimage), my life as a monastic does not allow me just to embark on a new adventure anytime I feel like it.  To compensate for this desire, I read travel memoirs and watch the Travel Channel.  Last night I took a breathtaking  journey of Mother Earth as I watched the movie EARTH( Disney Nature Films) .  I have come to love nature films, but this movie was by far one of the most spellbounding portraits of nature I have ever witnessed.  It gifted me with such "landscapes of spectacular beauty" that I will probably never have the opportunity to visit.  From the frigid Arctic to the Kalahari Desert, from the tropical rain forests to the vast blue oceans, the photography experience was a gift from God.  Time captured budding forth of flowers, mushrooms, and leaves spoke of vigilance to me- if only I could be present to see a bud open its face to the sun.  The film depicts the migration of polar bears, elephants, and whales journeying thousands of miles in search of food and water for their family.  Besides the long journey, they must endure the threat of predatory creatures who are also struggling to survive.  The aspects of global warming threaten the livelihood of the living creatures of our planet.  But the creatures of the earth persevere even in the dryness of the desert and the turbulence of the ocean.

As I watched this earth's journey, I thought of the Genesis story- God's creation of the heavens and the earth, night and day, sky, water, vegetation, plants, trees, swarms of living creatures, birds of the sky, great sea monsters, cattle and creeping things, wild animals, and male and female.  God saw that the gift of all creation was good.  And so should I!  How could one watch this film and not feel grateful. How could one watch it and not reverence the earth.  How could one watch it and not realize its message of God's presence and beauty all around and at every moment.

Christine Valters Paintner, in her book Water, Wind, Earth and Fire, quotes Peter London to exemplify earth as a metaphor for "our internal landscapes and spiritual journeys:"

 Each of the great forms that Earth takes- mountains and hills and plains and valleys and meadows and steppes and swamps and marshes and deserts and forests and jungles and savannas and beaches and islands- each of these geographies we transmute to geobiographies of our own personal journey across time and circumstance.  We too rise up, we ascend, we fall, only to rise and fall over and over, until we are leveled and become one again with the single mantle that is the resting ground and birthing ground of it all....The finite summit of the mountain's peak, the river's final arrival to the sea, the clearing in the depths of the woods, serve as exemplars and as metaphors for the often steep and uncertain and perilous journey that is our life.  (Peter London, Drawing Closer to Nature)

This journey around the world last night is still with me.  I watched it again today and I believe it will be a keeper- a meditation I will use when I feel the dryness of the desert and need a pick-me-upper on my daily journey through life.  I hope I will remember its vivid images whenever I pray the words of Psalm (103) 104:

Bless the Lord, my soul!

Lord, my God, you are great indeed!

You are clothed with majesty and glory,

robed in light as with a cloak.

You spread out the heavens like a tent;

you raised your palace upon the waters...

You bring bread from the earth,

and wine to gladden our hearts,

oil to make our faces gleam,

food to build our strength.

The trees of the Lord drink their fill,

the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted.

There the birds build their nests;

junipers are the home of the stork.

The high mountains  are for wild goats;

the rocky cliffs, a refuge for badgers...

All of these look to you

to give them food in due time.

When you give to them, they gather;

when you open your hand, they are well filled. 

My Gospel Tree

"Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same silent language, reminding the monk that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him."

~Thomas Merton

Our liturgical readings this past week have been very earthy, revealing the richness of Jesus' parables for growing in God's life.  Last Sunday's Gospel proclaimed the Our Father as a prayer that honors the Kingdom of God, petitions our need for daily sustenance of daily bread, and calls us to reconciliation.  Through prayer, we ask, seek and find the God life within us- the life that embraces God and embraces God within others through love and service. The weekly readings presented us with the Sower and the seed (Matthew 13).  In this parable we are presented with seeds that make it and seeds that don't.  Every time I read this parable, I want to be the seed that falls on good soil that will bear grain and survive.  I can identify with the weeds that mingle with the wheat.  My favorite parable is that of the mustard seed- "it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."

Outside the monastery stand two majestically enormous Southern magnolia trees.  I'm not sure exactly how old they are, but one of the Sisters tells me they were here when she arrived 65 years ago.  Whenever I stroll up the sidewalk under this tree, I am always amazed at the grandiose sturdiness of its trunk and branches.  The ever present greenness of the leaves uplift my spirits no matter the season of the year.  The magnificent magnolia blossoms with their sweet fragrance remind me of God's presence all around me.  As I stand under the tree's breathtaking beauty, I think of the small seed that has grown to reveal God's beauty and abundant love to me.  I think of the stability of the enormous trunk, roots, and branches that no tornado or ice storm can destroy.  As I ponder this tree's life-giving beauty in the midst of this humid summer season, I am aware that there are no weeds or wilting leaves in its vicinity.  The trunk and branches create a cross.  The branches' arms are extended to the world.  I think of John 15: 4, "Remain in me, as I remain in you.  Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me."

This tree invites me to renew my Benedictine vow of stability.  Cistercian monk Michael Casey says "Stability is not a matter of immobility or resistance to change but of maintaining one's momentum." ("The Value of Stability", Cistercian Studies Quarterly, 1966, p.288)  I must keep up the daily momentum of prayer, fruitful relationships, and loving service to all those I meet.  I must be rooted in this holy ground.  I must become as beautiful and life-giving as this faithful tree, the icon of Jesus, the Tree of Life, the all-embracing Gift of Love. In the words of Anselm Gruin, OSB, "Living in the presence of God, we encounter ourselves at every turn.  God, in turn, confronts us with our own reality so that we can recognize it and allow it to be purified by God." (Benedict of Nursia)

I vow to take the image of this "perfect" tree wherever I go.  I vow to return to the holy ground of this tree whenever the seed within me is no longer deep in rich soil.  I vow to become as "Holy" as this loving Tree of Life."

 

Haiku...Prayer of the Heart

I have discovered that the best form of prayer for me is to write from
the heart.  With paper and pen, immersed in the beauty of nature,
I continue to be amazed at God's revelation to me as the holy words
begin to float across the page.  My favorite form of writing is poetry and
haiku.  This was not my favorite literary form of writing as as a high school scholar.  I can remember when being directed to write a poem or haiku, I would just cringe.  Getting the structure and rhyme mechanics just right consumed too much of my energy.  I would like to think that if my teachers told me "just to write from the heart" maybe I would have had a better appreciation for it.

The Haiku is a short Japenese poem, composed of three lines.  The first and third line have five syllables, the second line has seven syllables. Tom Lowenstein, in his book Haiku Inspirations, sees haikus as "poems to appreciate in their own right"- they "reveal their hidden essence" and "offer inspiration."

Sister Macrina Wiederkehr describes the haiku as a work of art: "Take one particular event and try to get it into focus.  Put a frame around this experience as though it were a piece of art.  The Divine Artist is standing nearby trying to help you reverence the shades and colors of your life.  As the curtain is drawn up on one of your life's memories be prayerfully present at the scene.  Just receive it without any judgment about it."
(Gold in your Memories)
In other words, this says to me "let God do the work. You don't have to work so hard at it." Here are a couple of Macrina's haikus from the above book:
A tiny gold leaf
offers a silent sermon
from a barren branch.

My first memory of snow
Oh so much sugar, I thought
falling from heaven.

Kathleen Deignan, in her book Thomas Merton, When the Trees Say Nothing, states that Merton's writings on nature "awaken the naturalist in us, or the poet, or the creation mystic.  Perhaps he will aid us in recovering our senses that were fashioned to behold the wonders all around us."

I frequently write my haikus as a response to my morning meditation. With pen in hand, in the presence of a lit candle or sitting outside on by bench surrounded by magnificent trees and listening to bird song, I let God use my pen to manifest the sacred encounter within me.  Here are a few that I have written over the past month.
In night time silence,
gazing at the Living Flame,
Presence surrounds me.

Mary and Martha
lovers of the Divine Guest,
both prayer and action.

Stand up, awaken
behold God's amazing sight
nothing else matters.

I go forth to work
with you as my centerpoint
to spread your embrace.

This night of silence
draws me into blissful peace,
God's Holy Embrace.

If my high school teacher would have told me to go sit under a tree and write whatever flowed from within my heart, maybe I would have written the following haiku:

Holy Tree of Life
Illuminated Beauty
Surround me in Love.

A Saint Twice Honored

Saint Benedict

(480-547)

Founder of Western Monasticism

Patron of Europe

As Benedictines we celebrate the feast of St. Benedict twice a year. On March 21st we commemorate the passing of St. Benedict and July 11th is the Feast recognizing him as Patriarch of Western monasticsm. Generally, March 21st is considered the primary feast of celebration. However, there is controversy as to which feast is primary. We at Sacred Heart Monastery celebrate both days with uplifting liturgy specific to the feast and a festive meal gathering. The feast fell out this year on July 11 because the Sunday liturgy took precedence, so we celebrated it today. I am grateful to have the opportunity to celebrate twice yearly because it helps to keep my heart focused on the journey of my monastic call. The celebration is a step out of my ordinary routine to invite me to awareness of the sacredness of this life.

Pope Benedict XVI, in a general audience address in 2008, lauded St. Benedict as a "luminous star" (words of St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues -on the life of St. Benedict). "The Saint's work and particularly his Rule were to prove heralds of an authentic spiritual leaven which, in the course of the centuries, far beyond the boundaries of his country and time, changed the face of Europe following the fall of the political unity created by the Roman Empire, inspiring a new spiritual and cultural unity, that of the Christian faith shared by the peoples of the Continent."

From a life of solitude to the founding of Subiaco and MonteCassino and other monasteries in Italy, Benedict's charism thrives today, not only by vowed men and women living in community, but also by enthusiatic lay people affiliated with monastic communities, living the invitations of the Rule in their daily lives. Benedict "bequeathed with his Rule and the Benedictine family he founded a heritage that bore fruit in the passing centuries and is still bearing fruit throughout the world." (Pope Benedict XVI)

Tonight at Vespers we sang the following hymn by Ralph White, OSB, that I think captures both the life of St.Benedict and our daily journey of being faithful to the graced heritage of our call:

Blest in name more blest in calling, Benedict, we sing your praise,

Proud to be your sons and daughters, walking in your proven ways.

From those days when by the mountain, in the cave some way from Rome,

you were called to seek the Godhead, and to live for God alone.

In that hidden cave new wisdom and new holiness were born.

Seeking God, the light in darkness, others came in search of dawn,

begging you to be their leader, and to guide them to that home,

where the One who is eternal, welcomes all who are God's own.

Slow long years distill'd your wisdom into words that are your Rule,

That we too might learn to follow, learn to live in God's own school,

learn to love and learn to listen, learn with patience to obey.

How the humble find the kingdom, how the grumblers lose their way.

Humbly walking in your footsteps, Benedict we praise your name,

Thanking God for your great wisdom, letting faithfulness proclaim

still the wonder of that vision of this world you received:

All the beauty of Creation in a sunbeam you perceived.

In the valleys, on the mountains, in the cities of our land,

still we pledge our lives in worship, building on God's rock, not sand,

and in leading lives of silence, lives that balance work and prayer,

with great joy we prove by patience that our God is everywhere.

My prayer today is that all those gifted with a Benedictine heart may continue to follow the call of Christ and the invitation of St. Benedict to build on God's rock a fruitful life of silence, work, and prayer, constantly seeking the "luminous light" of God's presence everywhere. Following the theme of our present capital campaign, may we all "Reflect, Renew, Rejoice, Continuing the Sacred Tradition."